


see the wires pulling while you're breathing

by dustofwarfare



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angry Sex, BAMF Cloud because he's always a BAMF, Clothed Sex, Dissidia-verse, Grinding, Hatesex, Kinktober, M/M, Smirky Sephiroth, Uniform Kink, but you don't really need to know the plot, cloud mocking sephiroth's battle monologues is my kink, it's a fighting game just go with it, rubbing off in clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 07:58:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: “There’s nothing there,” he says, barely able to breathe as Sephiroth’s fingers unerringly trace the place where his blade struck true. “You don’t leave me any scars.”That’s a lie, though, isn’t it? Of course Sephiroth leaves scars. They’re just not the kind you can see.---------This is the one battle with Sephiroth that Cloud will ever (always) lose.





	see the wires pulling while you're breathing

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically set in Dissidia-verse, but there's no real knowledge of that game necessary -- they're fighting for two different deities to restore energy, it's a pretty thin plot, just go with it. But the line that opens the story is one that Sephiroth says to Cloud when they first see each other, and it does end up being true. 
> 
> But this is just basically hate-sex in a snowy field. If you're curious, the snowy field is Narshe from FF VI. It's an excuse to write hatesex-while-clothed/grinding sex, what. 
> 
> Title from "Wires" by The Neighborhood.

_ Eventually, our goals will align. And when they do, we shall meet once again. _

Cloud is still thinking about this as he and Bartz leave the Interdimensional Rift. They find Shantotto and continue hopping through portals, and he’s maybe not paying attention like he should be -- because one second he has Shantotto vaguely-but-not-really-rhyming her speech in front of him, and the next -- 

He’s alone. Standing in a snowfield that reminds him of Great Glacier just outside Icicle, so much so that he looks up at the sky almost on instinct. But there’s no meteor, just the night and a smattering of stars in unknown constellations.

Cloud can’t say he’s _ sad _, exactly, to be on his own, but...he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Bartz or Shantotto. That’s the problem with this place, making comrades and fellow soldiers out of strangers while still making you feel like you’re dreaming. 

“Hey,” Cloud calls, turning around and looking for his absent comrades. “Anyone here?” It’s cold enough he can see his breath, and his booted feet leave tracks in the snow. But his are the only footsteps, and it’s not snowing anymore. He must really be alone, then. 

“Hello, Cloud.” 

….or not. 

Cloud sees a familiar figure leaning against one of the rocky outcrops, hair the same color as the snow, watching Cloud with the unblinking gaze of a hawk. Sephiroth’s eyes are slit-pupiled but not the acidic color of fresh mako; here, they’re as blue as Cloud’s own. Some trick, or is this yet another version of Sephiroth spawned from Jenova cells and the tireless energy required to badger one man across literal dimensions? 

“Sephiroth.” Why does it feel like these interactions are all the same, following some script in a play Cloud never agreed to be in? He doesn’t even bother looking to see if Sephiroth brought along reinforcements. He always wants to fight Cloud alone, some terrible mimic of that very first battle in Nibelheim. 

Sephiroth pushes out of his lean and stalks toward Cloud. The edge of the masamune peeks up over his shoulder, but he makes no move to draw it. “Do you know where we are?” 

Cloud shrugs. “Someone else’s world you want to ruin so you can use it to cruise the cosmos?” 

Sephiroth laughs. The sound makes all the hair stand up on the back of Cloud’s neck. “Oh, Cloud. The only thing I want to ruin here is you. But that’s not the plan today, I’m afraid.” 

“What a shame.” Cloud’s sword _ is _drawn, because Sephiroth is a lie dressed up as a man and Cloud will believe nothing he says on sheer principle. “What is it you want? I’m not the type for witty banter.” 

“No, you’re not, are you?” Sephiroth’s eyes flicker to Cloud’s sword. 

“If there’s something you want to say,” Cloud says, flatly, “then just say it.” 

Of course, that’s when Sephiroth chooses not to deliver one of his smirky little taunts. But he moves closer, as if he’s trying to block Cloud in against the rocky formation at his back. 

Cloud moves quick and dashes around so he can’t. “I’m not in the mood for this.” 

Sephiroth tilts his head, mouth quirking. “Are you, ever?” 

It’s an unexpected question, because Sephiroth doesn’t ask him things like this. He says infuriating things, or over-the-top dramatic ones, and then they fight. Just because this world isn’t theirs and may not even be _ real _doesn’t usually make him change the script. “Not really.” 

“Our goals _ will _ align. We might even have to fight at each other’s sides.” 

Cloud’s eyebrows go up. He can’t imagine a time when that might happen, or why, and he doesn’t want to think about it. “I doubt it.” Cloud draws his sword and goes for the kill. Why put off the inevitable? At least they’re alone, and he doesn’t have to worry about anyone else getting caught in the crossfires of their eternal enmity. 

Sephiroth parries Cloud’s attack, then neatly side-steps. “Cloud. As I’ve said, it’s not the time.” 

Like their battles are on some kind of time-table. “Like I care.” Cloud leaps toward him and Sephiroth sighs, loud enough that it sounds like he’s _ put out _by this whole thing, before he meets Cloud’s sword with his own. 

He smiles. Cloud scowls. A sudden rumble beneath him sends him scrambling to try and find his footing. Sephiroth _ pounces _in a whirl of catlike grace and flying white hair, and Cloud is so incensed he can’t even be afraid when Sephiroth ends up on top of him. 

“Did you use a _ quake _spell? Quake? Seriously?” Cloud pushes his hands down on the snowy ground and tries to shove up, but Sephiroth’s weight on top of him is as easy to move as a mountain. It offends him that Sephiroth -- the greatest swordsman in the world -- just did the equivalent of pulling a rug out from beneath him. 

“I’m not trying to kill you, Strife,” says Sephiroth. He leans down, his hair falling around them, and he’s so close that Cloud can see the pale smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose. His hair drifts in the breeze and brushes against Cloud’s face. It tickles. 

This whole thing is so stupid that Cloud laughs, the sound bitter as old coffee. “Get off me. If we’re not fighting, then leave me alone.” His eyes catch Sephiroth’s and he feels his face heat. “What part of this aren’t you getting?” 

“I’m curious,” Sephiroth says, leaning forward, hands on the ground by Cloud’s head. “I so rarely get the chance to look at you.” 

“Um,” says Cloud. He has to reach up and push Sephiroth’s hair out of his face. “You know what I look like, Sephiroth. _ Move _.” 

Sephiroth leans in closer. “Or what?” 

Here they are, mortal enemies who have fought to the death _ three times, _and they are lying in the snow in some world that isn’t their own, with Cloud prone on his back and Sephiroth astride him. The masamune isn’t anywhere that Cloud can see, and his own sword is a few feet away. The ground is hard and cold beneath him, and Cloud cannot believe this is a thing that is happening to him. 

Bickering is a thing you do with your friends, or maybe your siblings. Not your _ archnemesis. _

Instead of answering, Cloud reaches up and grabs a fistfull of Sephiroth’s hair and _ pulls. _ “I said. Get _ off _ me.” He gets another handful with his other hand and pulls them both, and it puts him in mind of tugging the reins of a chocobo. Which might have made him laugh if it was anyone other than Sephiroth. 

Cloud pulls again, harder, and bucks up -- Sephiroth is Jenova-enhanced _ and _bigger than he is, and while he’s able to accommodate these differences while fighting him, they’ve never grappled before. He’s trying to remember what Vincent taught him about sparring with someone bigger than you, tricks they teach all the Turks about how to fight dirty and fast. 

Sephiroth makes a sound low in his chest and pushes down against Cloud. It takes a few long seconds for Cloud to realize that the noise Sephiroth made was a _ moan _and that there’s something insistent and hard pressing against him. 

“You’re _ kidding _ me,” Cloud says, staring, and he’s so shocked that if Sephiroth did have his masamune, he could strike Cloud through the heart -- _ again _\-- without much effort. “This? This gets you going?” 

“Why wouldn’t it?” Sephiroth grinds down on top of him, and the hateful little sneer is at odds with the hardness pressing into Cloud’s stomach. “Having you beneath me, my rival, my murderer….what sort of adversary would I be, not to find this thrilling?” 

“Could’ve just said _ yes _ ,” Cloud mutters. He relaxes, runs through all of Vincent’s lessons and _ ah-ha. _ He head-butts Sephiroth and hooks an ankle around Sephiroth’s leg and flips them so that now _ Cloud _is on top, pinning Sephiroth to the cold ground with his hands on Sephiroth’s shoulders. 

Sephiroth’s hair is in his face and he’s still smiling that odd little smile, and if he’s upset by their change in position he doesn’t let it show. Instead, he all but purrs up at Cloud, “Don’t you find it thrilling, Cloud?” 

The problem is -- he _ does _ . He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s never been able to get his hands on Sephiroth like this, never felt the full breadth of his tall body laid out and trapped. Cloud’s breathing fast and his own cock is hard, and he grinds down on top of Sephiroth and bites out, “I _ hate _you.” 

“Yes,” Sephiroth says, and he moves -- but not to try and flip Cloud off him. “And I most assuredly return the sentiment. But I like your hate, Cloud. Your darkness, your anger...all of it for me, only for me, isn’t that right?”

“No, trust me, I’m mad at a lot more people than just you.” Cloud’s whole body is lit up with nerves and some sick excitement; it feels like it always does with the two of them, his focus and his gaze riveted only on that hateful, beautiful face. Right now he doesn’t hate anyone as much as he hates _ himself _ for being turned on by this. Not even Sephiroth. 

There’s a whirl of black-and-silver as Sephiroth flips them again. Cloud tries to say something and gets a mouthful of Sephiroth’s hair. He goes to shove it out of his way but Sephiroth’s black-gloved fingers wrap around his wrists and pin his arms above his head. “But I am the true axis around which your rage revolves, am I not?” 

Cloud bangs his own head on the ground. “Usually when I have to listen to you say this stuff, I get to stab you when you’re done.” If given six centuries and a thesaurus, he’d never be able to come up with _ the axis around which your rage revolves. _

Sephiroth’s slow smile is soft and cruel. His eyes flicker down to where his blade pierced Cloud, in the storm-tossed sky over the ruins of Shinra’s tower. “In due time, my puppet. In due time, we’ll face each other across our blades once more. But as I’ve said, that time is not now.” 

“Then _ get off me and go away _,” Cloud bites out each word, cold and precise. “And I’m not your puppet. You know it so stop saying it.” 

“I don’t think that’s what you want,” Sephiroth says, infuriating as ever. “I can feel you, against me. Your cock, Cloud. Maybe, here in this place that isn’t ours, you _ want _to be my puppet. To let me pull your strings.” 

There is no place in the universe that Cloud would -- no, _ should _ \-- want that. But Cloud’s face goes flushed and hot, and _ gods _ , Sephiroth’s sinful and beautiful voice saying the word _ cock _ and Cloud’s _ name _in the same sentence is too much, reminds him of long ago when this man’s regard was all he wanted. “It’s just biology. Don’t take it personally.” 

That lie tastes like snow in Cloud’s mouth -- sharp and cold. It’s always been personal. It will always _ be _personal. 

Sephiroth lowers his head, so that his mouth is _ almost _ touching Cloud’s. “Everything of yours is mine, Cloud. Your hate, your passion, your _ lust _ \-- it’s mine, and I’ll take it all.” 

Cloud tries to pull his hands free, but Sephiroth’s fingers tighten around his wrists and he shifts, sliding one muscled thigh between Cloud’s leg, rubbing it tight and slow against Cloud’s aching cock. 

“Stop -- what --” Cloud’s head tosses on the ground and he can feel his body responding, the adrenaline and desperation and yes, the _ fear _, all caught up together, a tangled knot of heat and want. He’s panting and shifting, unsure if he’s trying to get away or get more friction, and Sephiroth’s face is too close. 

Cloud tightens his abdominals, ignores the heady rush of pleasure building as Sephiroth rubs his cock with his thigh, and lifts up so he can get his mouth on Sephiroth’s. He doesn’t kiss him, he _ bites, _taking Sephiroth’s bottom lip between his teeth and making it vicious. He doesn’t stop until he tastes blood, and honestly, he’s not sure he expected that Sephiroth was even human enough to still bleed. 

Sephiroth’s mouth is smeared red. He doesn’t even look angry about it, either, just licks at the blood with his tongue and _ that _doesn’t really help Cloud’s condition; if anything, it makes his cock ache even more to see it. “My. Bloodthirsty little thing. Did you like that?” 

“You made _ me _ bleed, last time,” Cloud says, watching him. He remembers how much he bled from the sword through his foot, slicing up, severing the muscles of his knee. Remembers the sweat stinging his eyes as he fell and fell and fell, the broken bones that healed thanks to Hojo’s merciless modifications. “But somehow you never do seem to bleed when I kill you. So, yeah. I liked it.” 

Sephiroth smiles. He finally lets go of Cloud’s wrists and shoves one hand up and under Cloud’s shirt. The leather of his gloves is soft as silk against Cloud’s skin and Sephiroth’s fingers stroke him, seeking the scar from the masamune. Cloud’s enhanced healing took care of it, along with his severed tendons and everything else. “There’s nothing there,” he says, barely able to breathe as Sephiroth’s fingers unerringly trace the place where his blade struck true. “You don’t leave me any scars.” 

That’s a lie, though, isn’t it? Of course Sephiroth leaves scars. They’re just not the kind you can see. 

“I’ll just have to make sure I do, next time.” Sephiroth’s little half-smile slides off his face like water, and his eyes glint with cruel interest as he stares down at Cloud. “I’ve taken your pain, your despair, and now I’ll take your pleasure, too.” 

He’s so dramatic. Cloud wants to push him away, wants to stop his hips from pushing up and seeking friction, wants to deny that the adrenaline rush is doing it for him in any way but he can’t. So he flips them one more time, letting himself fall into the dreamy unreality of being wherever they are, those unknown stars shining down from a foreign sky, and lets himself press his mouth to Sephiroth’s to kiss him. 

He tastes like a man, though tinged copper with blood from Cloud’s bite. Cloud runs his hands up and down Sephiroth’s chest, shoves them under the crossed-straps that he’s never understood the purpose of and feels muscle beneath his own gloved fingers. As ethereal as Sephiroth’s beauty is, the cock pressing against Cloud’s hip and the sounds Sephiroth makes are as human as anyone else. 

Cloud presses a heated, angry kiss over the spot where he would have left a scar of his own, and looks up. 

Sephiroth’s watching him, mouth slightly-parted and still a bit red-tinged even if he’s not bleeding anymore. His face has some color on it and his breathing is a bit faster than normal, but his eyes are glass-empty and smooth-cold, and Cloud’s cock is _ aching _but he says, before he can stop himself, “Why are your eyes blue?” 

Sephiroth’s hand reaches out and slides up to curl around the back of Cloud’s neck. He could break Cloud’s neck with that grip, probably. If he wanted to. “It’s strange that you haven’t figured it out yet. My eyes look like _ yours _ , Cloud. Because I’m you and you are me. I am everything you want to pretend you’re not -- your pride, your darkness, your bloodlust, your _ desires. _” 

Cloud just _ stares _ at him. “What’s that make me? And don’t say _ my puppet _ or I’ll knee you in the groin.” 

Sephiroth’s full mouth slides into a smirk. “Why don’t you tell me?” 

The thing is, Cloud doesn’t know. Sephiroth is pride and violence and grace and power, all the things Cloud might secretly fear (want) himself to be, but what does that make _ him _? 

Sephiroth’s guilt? His humanity? His moral _ fucking _compass?

“No, thanks,” Cloud says, voice trembling. “I’m done being other people. I’m me, Cloud Strife, and you know what I think?” He grabs Sephiroth by the top of his stupid crossed harness and _ yanks _his head up, possibly the first time since his teenage fantasies that he’s wanted Sephiroth to be this close. “I think you hate that I’m just a nobody who keeps killing you.” 

“Of course I hate that,” Sephiroth says, like Cloud’s stupid. “Because it’s not true. You just _ want _it to be, because that’s easier. You never have wanted to admit what you are.” 

_ Because unlike you, I don’t want to be a monster. A god. I just want to be Cloud, and I’m so tired of being special. _

“This is stupid.” Cloud’s breathing is fucked up, his cock still hard and his muscles tense. This place isn’t real, he’s starting to think _ Sephiroth _ isn’t real, and if he really is some manifestation of Cloud’s mind, then why is Cloud arguing with him? It’s not like Sephiroth is on the best of terms with reality, even when he _ isn’t _a figment of Cloud’s imagination. 

Fuck it. Cloud grabs him and pulls him closer, kissing him again and muttering, “Shut up. Just -- shut up,” as he does it. He gets his hands tangled in Sephiroth’s stupid beautiful hair and pulls, grinding against him, making it hard and merciless like they’re fighting. 

“My vicious little Cloud,” Sephiroth gasps, and for what it’s worth, he sounds more affected by Cloud’s sudden display of lust than he ever does when they’re fighting. “Does anyone but me get to see this part of you? Go on. You can’t hurt me. You can’t even kill me.” 

“Don’t blame me just -- just ‘cause not even death wants you,” Cloud huffs, rubbing against the hard length of Sephiroth’s leather-covered erection. Pleasure is like a knife-scratch down his spine, like a fire spell on his veins, like lightning magic brightening up everything he is. 

“I see why you abstain from speeches in a battle,” Sephiroth says, smugly. “You’re not very good at them.” 

_ This isn’t a battle _, Cloud almost says, but of course it is. It’s as much as battle as anything else between them, isn’t it? Cloud slams his mouth down on Sephiroth’s just in case Sephiroth’s in the mood to try and give him any monologue lessons. This is a battle, and the only way out is to end it, fast. 

Sephiroth seems to be in the mood for what they’re doing, his hips pushing up to meet Cloud as Cloud ruts on top of him like some kind of animal. It’s vicious and fast, their panting breaths the only sound in the eerie quiet of this maybe-dream world, and Cloud’s body builds toward his release with frightening speed. Sephiroth’s body is -- incredible, all toned and muscular, his cock and his thighs giving delicious friction to Cloud’s erection as he writhes on top of him. 

When he fights Sephiroth, there’s always a moment where he thinks he’s going to lose, that this is it, that he’ll fail to be the Planet’s champion, Gaia’s weapon, the sword to slay the Calamity’s chosen son. This world has no such lore and no such rules; here he’s just trying to get off, hurtling toward release instead of a deathstrike. It feels worse in some way, because this is just for Cloud -- he’s not saving anyone, he’s just getting off. 

Sephiroth meets him in intensity just like he always does. Like every battle they’ve ever fought, he’s the first to fall -- pulling his mouth away from Cloud’s, moaning as he shudders and comes beneath Cloud’s furious and angry grinding. His fingers dig into Cloud’s arms, his head tosses on the ground made muddy from melted snow, and his long, lean legs wrap tight around Cloud’s hips to drag his pleasure out and make Cloud _ feel _it. 

Sephiroth’s deaths are always dramatic -- shattered shards of light, a flurry of feathers -- except for the first one. The one Cloud still dreams about, sometimes. Sephiroth staring at Cloud, eyes wide with disbelief, before he fell to his death in the mako reactor; his beloved _ mother _and the steel floor equally unforgiving. 

Whatever else he’d been, he’d died there like any man would when his spine shattered. 

Sephiroth comes like any other man, beneath Cloud; with a choked moan and a beautifully arched throat, the tangled mess of his pale hair falling over his face and across his closed eyes. He’s never looked peaceful when he dies, just angry. For a moment, here, Cloud sees the echoes of who Sephiroth might have been, once. Before the madness took him. 

That isn’t anything Cloud wants to see. Neither of them are who they used to be. 

Cloud buries his face in Sephiroth’s neck, and comes seconds later. It’s good, _ so _good, better than it almost ever is; he shudders hard on top of Sephiroth’s slowly-relaxing form and comes in his pants, the orgasm sparking bright behind his eyes. He doesn’t have to be careful of the body beneath him, of gripping too hard when pleasure makes him careless and makes him forget who he is. What he is. 

When Cloud drags his eyes open, Sephiroth is watching him. His expression is unreadable. Cloud’s face burns. He usually just feels relieved whenever he kills Sephiroth, which is the only way their battles ever end. Now, he just feels ashamed. 

Sephiroth smiles. “There, now,” he purrs, stroking a hand through Cloud’s hair in a parody of affection. “Good boy.”

Cloud scrambles up and off, his back to Sephiroth as he discreetly fixes his clothes and goes to find his discarded sword. He can hear Sephiroth behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t want to see Sephiroth’s face, or that smile. 

If this was a battle, it’s the first one Cloud didn’t win. 

***

Sephiroth leaves with a vague _ I’ll see you soon, Cloud, and you’ll understand what I mean _. Cloud ignores him and stares off into the vast expanse of nothing, wondering how far these illusory worlds go. The sky never changes and it never starts to snow, but when he turns back around the snow is smooth and even, unmarred from either their grappling or -- anything else. Cloud’s own footprints are gone, too. Maybe this world just resets, every so often. Or maybe Sephiroth was never really there. 

Cloud has no idea which he prefers. Either he’s crazy, or he’s -- crazy. He laughs. There sound does not echo. 

A portal opens up without warning, the shape strange and stretched and yawning. Cloud thinks for a moment about staying there, in the quiet and the solitude, in this place that isn’t and under these stars that aren’t his. But in the end he moves ever-forward, sword slung across his back, because that’s all he’s ever really known how to do. 

“Let’s mosey,” Cloud mutters, and walks through the portal. 

**Author's Note:**

> I read something once, somewhere (great references, I know) about how Sephiroth's eyes in Dissidia are blue because he's a manifestation of Cloud's inner darkness or something. I like that, and as it's kinda how I always see these two, I went with it.


End file.
